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Best place for newbie to buy cabochons please?

Hi everyone, I have just made my first ring using a 8mm iolite cabochon that I got from ebay (2 for £2,50) tumbled it at the end and the colour came out of the gemstone so lesson learnt there. I am really clueless in knowing where to buy cabochons that are not too expensive whilst I am on the new learning curve, Can anyone help me please? Thanks so much!

A good place for cheap Cabs is Manchester Minerals; http://www.manchesterminerals.co.uk you will have to register before you can see their prices, but to give you an idea an 8mm. round Amethyst cab costs £2.04. inc. Vat. all types of real stones all sizes at good prices.

Best bet is always to try to get to a rock n gem show, where you can actually see before you buy. You can get some real bargains as well. Especially if you're happy to be a bit creative about settings and don't mind slightly imperfect stones.

Ouch! They shouldn't have lost their colour but eBay is iffy. You can get some great, genuine stones but at the same time you can also end up with rubbish. A lot of it is severely mis-described so you have to scour through the piles of rubbish to find the nice gems. If you're not overly familiar with gemstones, it's definitely best to stick to reputable dealers.

I find Marcia Lanyon is good for the usual calibrated cabs and the prices aren't too high but as with a lot of suppliers, they are trade only and you have to register. Kernowcraft is quite good for commercial cabs. There are some wonderful sellers on Etsy too but as with eBay you need to be careful and find a trusted supplier.

Another one to try is Joopy Gems, she is on Etsy too now, but I bought from her a couple of times before she joined Etsy and her stones are lovely. She is an English girl that went to University here in the UK and moved to Hong Kong to live, have a look at her profile.